Wing FTP, Xlight, Bitvise, Rebex Tiny, Serv-U and JSCAPE: The Other Windows FTP and SFTP Servers, Compared

Every server evaluation starts with a list of names, and the list is always assembled the same way. Two names come from a forum thread. One comes from a colleague who used it at a previous job and remembers it fondly. One was found already installed on a machine nobody admits to owning. By the time the spreadsheet is opened there are nine products on it. They range from a single file that runs from a memory stick to a platform that arrives with a professional services team.

This article sorts that list. It covers the Windows FTP and SFTP servers that people ask about most after the half dozen in our main comparison: Rebex Tiny SFTP Server, the Core FTP mini SFTP server, the SolarWinds SFTP/SCP server, Wing FTP Server, Xlight FTP Server, Bitvise SSH Server, Serv-U, and JSCAPE MFT Server. For each it says what the product is for, in its maker's own terms where possible, and where it fits.

One disclosure, as always on these pages: we make a competing product, Sysax Multi Server. The descriptions below were checked against each vendor's published material when this page was written. Products change, so treat the vendor's own site as the authority. This page is part of our Best SFTP Server for Windows comparison.

Three Sizes of Server

The nine names on a typical list are not nine competitors. They come in three sizes, built for three different jobs. Comparing across sizes is how a test utility ends up in production and how a ten-user office ends up with an enterprise platform.

Decide which size you need before you compare within it. A utility is for testing and one-off jobs. A full server is for accounts, partners, and years of service. An MFT platform adds automation, central policy, and reporting across many flows, and is described in MFT software and solutions explained.

The Tiny Ones: Built for Testing

Three of the names are small utilities. They are good at what they are for, and their makers are refreshingly clear about what that is.

Rebex Tiny SFTP Server

Rebex Tiny SFTP Server is a free SFTP server for Windows that needs no installation. You unzip it, run it, and press Start. Its maker describes it as being for local SFTP client development and testing, quick file sharing, and throwaway single-user setups. It supports password and key login, and it is free even for commercial use.

The limits are stated just as plainly. It has one user and one folder, and the password is stored in a clear-text configuration file. The vendor's own words are that it is fine for development, testing, and quick sharing, and not for real passwords or production. For those it offers a separate, fuller product. If you are writing a script and need something to point it at for an afternoon, this is an excellent choice. It is one of the few products whose documentation tells you when to stop using it.

Core FTP mini SFTP server

The Core FTP mini SFTP server is in the same spirit: a free program of about a megabyte that runs without installation. You enter a user name, a password, a port, and a folder, and click start. It supports SFTP only. Its maker notes that it has no permissions setup to stop a connected user deleting files, so the folder must be protected by other means. It is meant for securely moving files between two computers with the least possible setup. The same company sells a full server with more protocols and proper user management.

SolarWinds SFTP/SCP server

The SolarWinds SFTP server, properly the SolarWinds SFTP/SCP server, is a free tool from a network management company. It provides SFTP and SCP, runs as a Windows service, and accepts transfers from several devices at once. Network engineers commonly use it as the place routers and switches send their configuration backups and collect firmware images, since those devices often speak SCP. The vendor lists a maximum file size of four gigabytes. It is offered as basic file transfer, with the company's paid product positioned for everything beyond that.

The pattern across all three is the same. Each is a single-purpose tool with minimal or no account management. None is meant to face the internet with partner credentials behind it. Kestrel Payroll learned the difference by accident. A developer started a tiny test server to check an export script and gave the address to one client "just until the real one is ready." The real one was delayed. Two years later an audit found that client still uploading payroll files every week to a utility running under a developer's login, with a single password sitting in a text file beside it. Nothing had gone wrong. It had never been anybody's job to notice. Temporary servers have a way of outliving the people who started them.

The Full Servers

The next group are products you could run for years. They have multiple users, per-user folders and permissions, logging, and an administration interface.

Xlight FTP Server

Xlight FTP Server is a Windows FTP and SFTP server with a reputation for being small and fast. Its maker describes it as a portable program with very low memory and CPU usage, designed to handle many connections. It supports FTP, FTPS in both explicit and implicit forms, and SFTP. For accounts it can integrate Active Directory and LDAP users, or keep users and settings in a database through ODBC, and it supports SSH public key login. It runs on a very wide range of Windows versions, old and new. There is a free edition for personal use.

Xlight suits administrators who want a traditional FTP and SFTP server without much else around it, particularly on modest hardware. It does not provide a browser-based transfer page for end users.

Wing FTP Server

Wing FTP Server is the cross-platform entry. It runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS. It supports FTP, FTPS, and SFTP, and includes a web server that provides a web client, so users can upload and download in a browser. Administration is web-based as well. User data can be kept in files or in a database, with Windows Active Directory and LDAP authentication also supported. An event manager can run Lua scripts, send email, or start another program when things happen on the server. A free edition is available for non-commercial use.

Wing FTP is a natural choice when the server might not stay on Windows, or when one team runs both Windows and Linux hosts and wants the same product on each. That is something our own server cannot offer.

Bitvise SSH Server

Bitvise SSH Server, which people often search for as the Bitvise SSH/SFTP server, starts from SSH rather than from FTP. It gives secure remote access to Windows machines: an SSH terminal, port forwarding, and file transfer by SFTP and SCP. It also supports FTPS, for clients that require FTP over TLS. Logins can be Windows accounts, local or Active Directory, or virtual accounts defined in the server's own settings. It supports a time-based one-time password as a second factor, and it uses Windows' built-in cryptography when FIPS mode is enabled in Windows. It is free for personal, non-commercial use.

Bitvise is a strong choice where SSH is the centre of the requirement: administrators who need a remote shell and tunnelling as well as file transfer, on Windows, with a proper settings interface. It does not provide a browser-based transfer page.

Where ours sits

Sysax Multi Server belongs to this group. It offers SFTP, FTPS, FTP, and HTTPS web transfer from one Windows service, with its own accounts, Windows and Active Directory logins, a second factor at login, a FIPS 140-2 mode, and logging to file and database. It is Windows-only and is not a portable utility. The fuller description, alongside five other products, is on the main comparison page. A direct comparison with the best-known free server is in FileZilla Server vs Sysax Multi Server.

The MFT End: Serv-U and JSCAPE

The last two names sit at or near the managed file transfer end of the market.

Serv-U is the SolarWinds file transfer product, and it has long been sold in more than one edition. Searches for the SolarWinds Serv-U FTP Server and for the SolarWinds Serv-U Managed File Transfer Server are looking at two tiers of the same family. The managed file transfer edition is the fuller one. The vendor describes it with centralized file transfer management, ad hoc file sharing for end users, a web-based management console, event-driven automation, and FIPS 140-2 cryptography. Which protocols and features each edition includes has changed over the years, so read the vendor's current edition table before assuming. Serv-U is the entry to consider when procurement wants a large vendor's name on the contract.

JSCAPE MFT Server is a managed file transfer platform, now part of Redwood Software. It is platform-independent and supports a wide range of protocols, including those used between trading partners as well as SFTP, FTPS, and HTTPS. It is built around triggers and workflows, which is to say the automation and control layers of MFT. It belongs on a shortlist for an MFT program. For a single Windows server with twenty partner accounts, it is more platform than the job requires.

If either of these is on your list, the useful question is not which server is best. It is whether you need MFT at all, which do you need MFT? helps to answer.

How to Compare Them Yourself

Feature lists age. Vendors rename editions and move features between tiers more often than anyone rewrites the comparison pages that describe them. A method does not age. These are the six questions that separate the products above, in the order that removes candidates fastest.

1. Which protocols must it speak? Ask your partners, do not guess. SFTP only, SFTP and FTPS, or those plus a browser page.
2. Which operating system will host it? If the answer might ever be Linux, several Windows-only products leave the list.
3. Where do the accounts come from? The server's own list, Windows accounts, Active Directory, or a database.
4. What will an auditor ask for? A second factor, a FIPS mode, and a searchable log of every transfer are either present or absent.
5. Who administers it, and how? A desktop program on the server, a web console, or a text file.
6. How is it licensed? Free, one-time per server, or subscription, and what year three costs.

Put the answers in a grid, one column per candidate, and fill it from each vendor's current documentation and from your own trial, not from a comparison page. That includes this one.

SERVER COMPARISON GRID                         Date checked: ________

                              Candidate A   Candidate B   Candidate C
Product and edition           ___________   ___________   ___________
Size: utility / server / MFT  ___________   ___________   ___________
SFTP                          ___________   ___________   ___________
FTPS (explicit / implicit)    ___________   ___________   ___________
HTTPS page for users          ___________   ___________   ___________
Host operating systems        ___________   ___________   ___________
Own accounts                  ___________   ___________   ___________
Windows / AD / LDAP logins    ___________   ___________   ___________
SSH key login                 ___________   ___________   ___________
Second factor                 ___________   ___________   ___________
FIPS mode                     ___________   ___________   ___________
Per-file activity log         ___________   ___________   ___________
Administration interface      ___________   ___________   ___________
Events / automation           ___________   ___________   ___________
License model                 ___________   ___________   ___________
Cost over three years         ___________   ___________   ___________
Support: forum / vendor       ___________   ___________   ___________
Source for each answer        ___________   ___________   ___________

The last row matters more than it looks. Write down where each answer came from and when. A grid filled in from memory and forum posts is a list of rumors with borders. The trial method is in designing a trial that actually tests a file transfer server, and the criteria are discussed in evaluation criteria and how to weight them.

Where Our Server Fits, and Where It Doesn't

It would be odd to describe everyone else's boundaries and not our own.

Sysax Multi Server fits an organization that runs Windows servers, needs more than one protocol for outside partners, wants staff to log in with their directory accounts, and has security requirements such as a second factor or a FIPS mode. It is licensed per server. For scheduled transfers out to partners, it pairs with Sysax FTP Automation.

It does not fit several of the situations above. If you need something to test a script against for an hour, use one of the tiny servers. If the host is Linux or macOS, use a cross-platform product. If you need a remote shell and tunnelling as the main feature, an SSH-first server is the closer match. If you need a central console across dozens of servers with trading-partner protocols, you are shopping for MFT. And if SFTP on one Windows machine for a few technical users is the whole requirement, the OpenSSH server included with Windows costs nothing; how to set up an SFTP server on Windows covers it.

The Version to Tell a Colleague

The names on a server shortlist come in three sizes. Rebex Tiny SFTP Server, the Core FTP mini SFTP server, and the SolarWinds SFTP/SCP server are small free utilities for testing, one-off transfers, and network device files; they are not built for partner accounts. Xlight, Wing FTP Server, Bitvise SSH Server, and our own Sysax Multi Server are full servers that differ in protocols, host platforms, and account options. Serv-U's upper edition and JSCAPE MFT Server are at the managed file transfer end. Choose the size first, then compare protocols, accounts, audit features, and licensing from each vendor's current documentation.

For the six best-known Windows products side by side, see the main comparison of SFTP servers for Windows. For free options and clients, see best FTP software for Windows.

Frequently Asked Questions